Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/442

420 PAUL up his preaching in Macedonia for a time and went south wards to Athens. At The narrative which the Acts give of his stay at Athens Athens. [ s one o f t he most striking, and at the same time one of the most difficult, episodes in the book. What is the meaning of the inscription on the altar? What is the Areopagus 1 How far does the reported speech give Paul s actual words 1 What did the Athenians understand by the Insurrection 1 These are examples of questions on which it is easy to argue, but which, with our present knowledge, it is impossible to decide. One point seems to be clear, both from the absence of any further mention of the city in Paul s writings and from the absence of any permanent results of his visit, that his visit was a comparative failure. It was almost inevitable that it should be so. Athens was the educational centre of Greece. It was a great university city. For its students and professors the Christianity which Paul preached had only an intellectual interest. They were not conscious of the need, which Christianity presupposes, of a great moral reformation ; nor indeed was it until many years afterwards, when Christianity had added to itself certain philosophical elements and become not only a religion but a theology, that the educated Greek mind, whether at Athens or elsewhere, took serious hold of it. Of Paul s own inner life at Athens we learn, not from the Acts, but from one of his epistles. His thoughts were not with the philosophers but with the communities of Macedonia and the converts among whom he had preached with such different success. He cared far less for the world of mocking critics and procrastinating idlers in the chief seat of culture than he did for the enthusiastic artisans of Thessalonica, to whom it was a burning ques tion of dispute how soon the Second Advent would come, and what would be the relation of the living members of the church to those who had fallen asleep. He would fain have gone back to them, but "Satan hindered him" (1 Thess. ii. 17, 18); and he sent Timothy in his stead "to comfort them as concerning their faith," and to prevent their relapsing, as probably other converts did, under the pressure of persecution (1 Thess. iii. 2, 3). At From Athens he went to Corinth, the capital of the Corinth, Roman province of Achaia, and the real centre of the busy life of Greece. It was not the ancient Greek city with Greek inhabitants, but a new city which had grown up in lloman times, with a vast population of mingled races, who had added to the traditional worship of Aphrodite the still more sensuous cults of the East. Never before had Paul had so vast or so promising a field for his preach ing ; for alike the filthy sensuality of its wealthy classes and the intense wretchedness of its half-million of paupers and slaves (T?)V f38evpiav TMV fKeicrt TrXovcriuv /cat TWV Treyr/Tojv a^AioT^Ta, Alciphr. iii. 60) were prepared ground upon which his preaching could sow the seed, in the one case of moral reaction, and in the other of hope. At first the greatness of his task appalled him : "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling" (1 Cor. ii. 3). But he laid down for himself from the first the fixed principle that he would preach nothing but " Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor. ii. 2), compromising with neither the Jews, to whom "the word of the cross," i.e., the doctrine of a crucified Messiah, was "a stumbling- block," nor with the Gentile philosophers, to whom it was "foolishness" (1 Cor. i. 18, 23). It is probable that there were other preachers of the gospel at Corinth, especially among the Jews, since soon afterwards there was a Judaizing party ; Paul s own converts seem to have been chiefly among the Gen tiles (1 Cor. xii. 2). Some of them apparently belonged to the luxurious classes (1 Cor. vi. 11), a few of them to the influential and literary classes (1 Cor. i. 26) ; but the majority were from the lowest classes, the " foolish," the "weak," the "base," and the "despised" (1 Cor. i. 27, 28). And among the poor he lived a poor man s life. It was his special "glorying" (1 Cor. ix. 15 ; 2 Cor. xi. 10) that he would not be burdensome to any of them (1 Cor. ix. 12 ; 2 Cor. xi. 9, xii. 13). He worked at his trade of tent-making ; but it Avas a hard sad life. His trade was precarious, and did not suffice for even his scanty needs (2 Cor. xi. 9). Beneath the enthusiasm of the preacher was the physical distress of hunger and cold and ill-usage (1 Cor. iv. 11). But in "all his distress and affliction" he was comforted by the good news which Timothy brought him of the steadfastness of the Thessalonian converts ; the sense of depression which preceded it is indicated by the graphic phrase, " Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord " (1 Thess. iii. 6-8). With Timothy came Silas, both of them bringing help for his material needs from the communities of Macedonia (2 Cor. xi. 9 ; Acts xviii. 5 ; perhaps only from Philippi, Phil. iv. 15), and it was apparently after their coming that the active preaching began (2 Cor. i. 19) which roused the Jews to a more open hostility. Of that hostility an interesting incident is recorded in the Acts (xviii. 12-16); but a more important fact in Paul s life was the sending of a letter, the earliest of all his letters Avhich have come doAvn to us, to the community which he had founded at Thessalonica. Its genuineness, though perhaps not beyond dispute, is almost certain. Part of it is a renewed exhortation to steadfastness in face of perse cutions, to purity of life, and to brotherly love ; part of it is apparently an ansAver to a question which had arisen among the converts when some of their number had died before the Parousia ; and part of it is a general summary of their duties as members of a Christian community. It Avas probably f olloAved, some months af terAA T ards, by a second letter ; but the genuineness of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians has been much disputed. It proceeds upon the same general lines as the first, but appears to correct the misapprehensions Avhich the first had caused as to the nearness of the Parousia. After having lived probably about tAvo years at Corinth Paul resolved, for reasons to Avhich he himself gives no clue, to change the centre of his activity from Corinth to Ephesus. Like Corinth, Ephesus Avas a great commercial At city Avith a vast mixed population ; it afforded a similar E l ies field for preaching, and it probably gaA e him increased facilities for communicating Avith the communities to Avhich he Avas a spiritual father. It is clear from his epistles that his activity at Ephesus was on a much larger scale than the Acts of the Apostles indicate. Probably the author of the memoirs from AA hich this part of the narrative in the Acts was compiled Avas not at this time Avith him ; consequently there remain only fragmentary and for the most part unimportant anecdotes. His real life at this, time is vividly pictured in the Epistles to the Corinthians. It was a life of hardship and danger and anxiety : "Even unto this present hour AVC both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain chvelling- place ; and AVC toil, working with our OAVH hands ; being reviled, Ave bless ; being persecuted, we endure ; being defamed, we intreat ; Ave are made as the filth of the-world, the offscouring of all things even until now" (1 Cor. iv. 11-13). It Avas almost more than he could bear: "We Avere Aveighed doAvn exceedingly, beyond our pOAver, inso much that Ave despaired even of life " (2 Cor. i. 8). He went about like one condemned to die, upon Avhom the sentence might at any moment be carried out (2 Cor. i. 9). Once, at least, it seemed as though the end had actually come, for he had to fight Avith beasts in the arena (1 Cor. xv. 32) ; and once, if not on the same occasion, he was only saved by Prisca and Aquila, " who for his life laid down their own necks " (Rom. xvi. 4). But that Avhich